


Would Smell As Sweet

by sullenhearts



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 23:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10056671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullenhearts/pseuds/sullenhearts
Summary: The boys argue about changing their names after they get married. Set before they did so, obviously. Also hi, I'm new here.





	

“We could just both each keep our own names,” Aaron said. He was sitting on the sofa next to Liv, his arm spread across the back of it, just behind her. “We’d still be married.” He shrugged.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Robert said. “How would people know we’re married then?”

“Er, your wedding ring? The fact that you can’t go two minutes without touching me? I think people’ll notice.”

“Gross,” Liv said, changing channels again. 

“But when we go to dinner parties we can introduce ourselves as, you know, The Somebodies. Whichever name we choose,” Robert said.

Aaron raised an eyebrow at him. “When have we _ever_ been to a dinner party?”

“It could happen.”

“In your world, maybe. In my family a dinner party is having a Jacob’s Join.”

Robert blinked. “A what?”

Liv laughed. “Where did you even grow up, Robert?”

“Here,” Robert said. He had been pacing in the corner of the living room, but he flung himself into the armchair. “I’m just saying, if we did go to dinner parties – or welly wanging, whatever it is your family gets up to on those cold winter evenings – what would we introduce ourselves as?”

“I’ve got this revolutionary idea,” Aaron said. “We say, ‘Hi, we’re Rob and Aaron’.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Robert complained, but then he went quiet, his eyes on the TV.

“You could smush your names together,” Liv said eventually. “Like part of both of them.”

“What, like… Dugden?” Aaron said. 

“Yeah,” Liv said. “You can be the Dugdens.”

“Or the Singles,” Aaron said, smiling a bit. Then he heard himself and laughed. “Hello, we’re the Singles.”

“No,” Robert said forcefully. “That sounds like we’re going to go to a swingers’ party.”

“Rob!” Aaron said, sliding his eyes towards Liv, who blushed fiercely and tried to look very interested in the Audi advert that was on the telly. 

Rob didn’t say anything else and Aaron thought the idea was forgotten until later, after tea, when Robert said,

“Why won’t you change your name, hmm? I’d love it if you were a Sugden.”

Aaron sighed into his mug of tea. “I know you would.”

“So, go on then, let’s be the Sugdens.”

“Doesn’t that make you sound like your parents, though?”

Robert shrugged. “They’re not here now, are they? There’s no one else in the village called that.”

“Spose.”

“What is it?” Robert leaned forward, close to Aaron. Liv was sitting at the table doing her homework, bopping along gently to the music coming tinnily out of her headphones. Rob looked at her then back to Aaron. “Tell me?”

“I’ve been someone else, Robert. I’ve had another name. The name of a man who I really dislike and who made my life hell. Rejecting his name meant a lot to me, you know? Being a Dingle means a lot to me.”

“Right, yeah, I mean, I understand that… But this is a new start. For us.”

“Yeah, but why can’t you change your name? Be a Dingle. I dare you.”

Robert’s mouth twisted and he started to scoff, but Aaron cut him off.

“Being a Dingle means a lot to me,” he said again, quietly. “You can say what you like about my family but I’m one of them. I’ve got a place in that family, no matter who decides to come and go in the village. My own mother could leave and I’d still have a place there to call my own.”

Robert shut his mouth. Then nodded, just once. “Alright,” he said. “It’s alright.”

Then later, in bed, he said, “I’m still gonna call us the Sugdens.”

“Mmm,” Aaron said sleepily. “I’m going to call us the Dingles at all those fancy dinner parties we’re going to.”

“You do that.” Robert’s arm snaked around Aaron’s hip, his fingers cold on Aaron’s skin. 

Aaron laughed. “’m glad you understand it.”

“I do, course I do. You fought to be a Dingle.”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Plus your mother would probably kill me.”

“Probably,” Aaron said. He turned around, looking at Robert’s face in the dark grey light spilling through the curtains. “I’ll definitely be your mister Sugden, though.”

“Suppose I’ll be your mister Dingle, then, if you’ll have me.”

“Course,” Aaron said, and leaned across for a kiss. “We’ll still be married. That’s the important thing.”

“Mmm,” Rob said, and kissed him again. 

They were both silent for a few minutes, settling to sleep. 

“Aaron,” Rob said eventually, and Aaron had to blink himself out of sleep to reply.

“Mmm?”

“What surname are we going to give to the children?”


End file.
